Response to an Article



 

       According to Schlosser, an “explosion in children’s advertising” occurred in the 1980’s because parents started spending more and more money on their children to attempt to compensate for the lack of time the mother and father give to them. Parents began to feel guilty for not spending as much time with their kids and felt that buying them what they want could make up for that lost time. Advertisement agencies took notice of this and took full advantage of the increasing value of children’s desires. These agencies realized that it was becoming more and more popular for parents to buy kids whatever they say they want, so they altered all the advertisements possible to give kids more and more products to want. They also started to take advantage of their ads to take the time to create concrete ideas about their brands and products in children’s mind to start a long loyalty to their products and cause children to repeatedly make a brand a certain go-to for their parents to buy their children.

       Pester power is the ability for kids to persuade their parents into purchasing what they want through a variety of childlike tactics. When kids do not get what they want they can complain, whine, nag, or indeed pester their parents. The very large amount of nagging ways can easily get to parents and cause them to give in to their children’s demands and buy them what they want. Advertising agencies used this fact to their advantage as a way to sell their products through children. If they made their ads appealing to kids and made them have a strong desire to have the product, then the kids will in turn sell the product to their parents by using their own nags and arguments. Vance Packard referred to children as being “surrogate salesmen” in this situation because they are using their own tactics that are affective to their individual parents and using them to sell a product.

 

       According to Schlosser, the internet has contributed to the expansion in advertising directed toward children by being a valuable source of information about children. Various websites would ask for multiple forms of private information from kids that contribute to how they react to different objects and what they particularly take a liking to. By nonchalantly asking children these questions when they are doing or playing something online, companies were able to find out what kids like and relate to, and in return they used that information to incorporate those interests into ad campaigns. This was a highly treasured basis of knowledge because the vast majority of websites would not ask kids to get parent permission prior to providing their personal information, so they would readily provide whatever was asked of them. This asking of information without parent approval became illegal in 2000 when the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act was put into effect.  

      Schlosser says marketers use certain strategies to determine children’s tastes in products. One of these strategies entails market researchers surveying kids in a number of situations and places including the popular choice of shopping malls. They also analyze a number of young kids ranging in age by asking them questions and observing their behaviors in different environments such as slumber parties, school, restaurants, parks, and any sites where kids interact. Other strategies include putting together focus groups for young children and also analyze children’s artwork. Aside from direct study of kids, advertisers do research as well into a numerous amount of academic works on children from theorists and psychologists. They carefully study the thoughts and opinions of children displayed in their intimate actions and use the information they find in the creations of their advertisements.